55 days of BtVS: Day 5

I'm in Munich with my 11 year old son for a few days, the weather is fantastic, and we have a blast! Unfortunately I have lousy internet, though, so I'm only gonna post this until I get home again. Everything else will have to wait...Here goes:

Favorite first scene of a character

Although Dawn’s entrance is a close second (“Mom!!!”), I’ll have to go with Spike.

I hadn’t really decided yet if I even liked BtVS (I look at you, s1, sharply!), when suddenly an old car barrelled into town and crashed against the ‘Welcome to Sunnydale’ sign, these black boots stomped onto my screen, perfectly underlined by punky guitar sounds that hadn’t been heard in this show until now, and this guy appeared. And I was lost.

His next scene followed, and I knew it would stay that way. The glee he was oozing, how joyfully he put the assembled vampires in their place – that was brilliant. With Drusilla entering the room and Spike changing, he showed, after not much more than a minute on screen, that he was not like all the other stupid vamps, but layered - a vampire so obviously capable of emotions he shouldn’t have, visibly devoted to a woman. His entrance left me sitting there with my mouth open.

After a season with the Master, Spike and Dru were such a delight to watch! Especially Spike had such an aura of power and charisma! Only the second scene with him was on, and already the show had gotten so much better!

Luckily he didn’t disappoint later either. In only one episode he proved to be a fascinating complex character; he was ruthless, smart, tender, averse to tradition, impatient and funny. His first scene didn’t tell us all that, but with its standing out from everything we had seen so far on the show, it held the promise of the arrival of someone special. The episode most enjoyably kept this promise.